Midnight Moon (Vampire for Hire #13)(45)

"Sure," he said glumly. His hands were crossed in his lap and his head was bowed. He looked like he could have been praying to his own creator. "Except I haven't written in four months, ever since my wife left me."

"I know," I said. I waited. I also waited for him to make the connection. On his own. He didn't. Not yet.

I touched Allison's shoulder. "C'mon."

We were just exiting the study when his voice reached us. "The ghost appeared not long after."

I paused, waited. Allison took my hand. I let her.

"Except she's not a ghost, is she?" Now I heard the wonder in his voice. The sheer, beautiful, infectious, earth-shaking wonder. "It's Queen Autumn. And she needs my help. Son of a bitch."





Chapter Twenty-five



We waited. He needed to work through this. The weight on him, I suspected, was enormous. I kept the option of erasing his memory of it on the table. At least, the memory of this last day.

"So, they're all real?" he said again. He ran his fingers through his unkempt hair, making it more unkempt. I think once or twice he fought back a little vomit. After all, in his world, there had been much death and destruction as well. 

"I think so," I said. It was now twenty minutes before midnight.

"Had I known, I would never have..." his voice trailed off. "I would never have killed off any of them. Or hurt any of them."

"I know," I said. "But they also wouldn't have been alive either."

"What do you mean?"

"You loved them," I said. "Even the terrible characters. Even the monsters. You loved them all, with all your heart, for decades. They were real people, with real motivations, both good and bad. Sometimes good and bad people get hurt or killed."

"Then I shouldn't have loved them, or even wanted to tell their story!"

"Then you wouldn't have been alive, either," said Allison. "Their stories, their world, their hopes and dreams, gave you life too."

"Please tell me I'm dreaming," he said, burying his face in his hands. "Please tell me this isn't real."

Allison and I looked at each other. Neither of us knew what to do. I had never met a creator, and I especially had never been around one who just discovered that his creations were, in fact, real. Admittedly, it was hard to watch. He stood and paced, he cursed God and the heavens, he buried his face in his hands and wept. Sometimes he just stood there and laughed, nearly hysterically. Once or twice he hugged himself. All while the clock marched inevitably toward midnight.

With a few minutes to go, he finally collapsed between us on the couch again, where Allison and I had sat. I could smell the sweat on him now. I could also see some semblance of acceptance in his eyes.

He looked at me. "What do I do?"

"I don't know," I said.

"I haven't written in four months," he said.

"I know."

"Is that why Autumn … " He paused, and I secretly wondered if he loved her most of all. "Is that why Autumn is here? Her baby?"

"I think so."

"But I don't understand. Is their world on..." He paused again, searching for the right word. "On hold?"

Allison and I had thought about that, and had concluded that we didn't know. We said as much to Charlie.

"Their world just stopped?" he said, standing again, pacing again, running his hands through his hair again. I could see the mad genius flashing in his 'yes.' I could see his mind going in a hundred directions at once. Mostly, I could feel his sheer passion and love for what he had created. His sympathy and knowing. He knew all of them, down to every last person. Like a true god. There was, after all, decades of momentum here. This wasn't a man who decided to write just a few months ago, or even a few years ago. This was a man who had lived in this world for nearly all his life. I was, quite simply, watching a creator create.

"Yes, yes," he said, pacing faster, his eyes flashing with light in a way that hinted at the supernatural. "When I stopped writing, they stopped living. But not really. No, not really, because I think about them continuously, often, and wonder what they are up to. But their lives, for the most part, are on hold. They are waiting for me to finish this tale."

"And to start new ones," said Allison, sounding, suddenly, every bit the fangirl that she was. That we both were. I wouldn't have minded if Charlie wrote a hundred more stories set in the World of Dur. That is, before I knew their lives were real. Would it make reading the book different, knowing that people were really living and really dying? Really suffering and really loving, too? I didn't know, but it was an... exciting prospect. I caught Allison's eye, and she nodded with me, having followed my train of thought.